When Kellie Nelson received notice that a fellow Calumet City resident was challenging her election paperwork because she wrote "clerk" instead of "city clerk" on her nominating petitions, she never imagined the objection would be taken seriously. But the local election board -- made up of allies of her incumbent opponent -- ruled against her and, after taking the issue to a circuit court, she was eventually denied a spot on the ballot due to an unrelated objection, a decision backed by an appellate court on Tuesday.

Millenium Films has come on board Somali piracy actioner "High Value Target" with Spenser Cohen directing from his own script. Tripp Vinson ("Red Dawn") and Brooklyn Weaver ("Out of the Furnace") are producing. with Lisa Zambri exec-producing and Anna Halberg co-producing. The contained actioner is designed to be a potential low-budget franchise described, as "Black Hawk Down" meets "The Raid". Inspired by real events, project centers on a multinational hit squad consisting of five elite special ops soldiers who take out a ship of 200 Somali soldier-pirates and capture a high-value target with vital information.

Teachers and school board members in several Chicago area districts continue to negotiate contracts for the 1985-86 school year. Negotiations will continue Wednesday in Niles Township District 219. According to Niles Assistant Supt. Galen Hosler, "Both sides are down to a small number of issues and some economic conditions." Talks in Elk Grove Elementary District 59 will continue with a federal mediator Sept. 11. Negotiations will resume Saturday in Barrington Unit District 220, where teachers have said they will strike on Sept.

PARIS French paybox Canal Plus has boarded Gaumont Intl. Television's "Barbarella," Nicolas Winding Refn's high-profile series based on the French sci-fi comicbook character. Announced on June 20, "Barbarella" has sparked interest from various international networks, according to Gaumont vice-CEO Christophe Riandee. "Bringing Canal Plus on board as our first partner on 'Barbarella' was a strategic move: we want to show that GIT is a global company and is looking to work with the best international partners from the U.S., France and Europe," said Riandee.

CANNES -- EuropaCorp Television, the TV prod arm of Luc Besson's shingle, is developing "The Insider," an English-language crime drama created by Dmitry Lipkin, showrunner on "The Riches" and "Hung." Canal Plus has come on board to co-develop the skein. "The Insider" will center on a young woman who infiltrates a drug trafficking gang. Edouard de Vesine, who heads EuropaCorp Television with Thomas Anargyros, says the show could be a "feminine twist on 'Donnie Brasco.' " It will mainly lense in Europe, as well as Africa, among other overseas locations.

Most of us picture our North American ancestors as laborers with little time for leisure. But 18th- and 19th-Century Americans indulged in playing games --particularly board games--whenever an opportunity arose. While women plied their needles, men gathered around a game board and escaped, for a time, from the cares of the outside world. The boards these men played on were not store-bought; they were made by ordinary beings. The homemade game boards were far from crude, however.

Jerry Jones can keep his video boards where they are, at least for this season. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Friday clarified rules on punts that ricochet off the high-definition monitors hanging over most of the field at the new Cowboys Stadium. The guidelines cover only this season, an indication the league might force Jones to raise the boards before the 2010 season, which ends with the Super Bowl in his building. Downs will be replayed "if a ball in play strikes a video board, guide wire, sky cam or any other object," and the clock will be reset to the time of the snap.

In the last nine seasons, Dennis Rodman of Detroit and Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon are the only NBA players with more than 40 games of 20 or more rebounds. Rodman has 53 games with 20 or more rebounds, including 10 this season, and Olajuwon has 42, including once this season. When the Rockets and Pistons met Tuesday, Rodman had 18 rebounds.

Illinois has more women directors on the boards of its Fortune 500 companies than any other state in the country: 51 or 10 percent of the total. Ameritech Corp. and Baxter International have the most women on their boards: 3. Although these numbers might be impressive, they are still far from parity across the board, says the New York research firm Catalyst. A study by Catalyst shows that 429 Fortune 500 companies have women on their boards. Still, only 671 women occupy board slots overall, or slightly more than 11 percent of the total 6,064 seats.